| Aug 13, 2007 - Giverny and Paris once more
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 | | show all 4 | | lilly pond in Monet's garden | | Monet's garden | | flowers in the garden | | |
| I am back in Paris after what seems like a whirlwind tour of Northern France. It's hard to believe that tomorrow the tour will be over, it went so fast. My last night in Bayeux I went to dinner with the guide William and Xavier the bus driver. We spent a lot of time together on this tour and all got along well. Even though it was a great group of people, its nice to go out alone on our free nights and get away from them for an evening. We ate at a restuarant that William wanted to check out for future tours and it was great.
The night before we had a group dinner at a restaurant in Bayeux that the tour dept. had set up ahead of time. William didn't really like the place to begin with, but got really mad when the manager wouldn't bring tap water to the tables. Of course restaurants here prefer that you buy bottled water instead of getting free tap water, but legally they can't refuse to bring tap water if you ask. William argued quietly with the manager but he wouldn't budge. Finally he decided to buy a bottle of water for each table and told the restaurant manager that he would never bring a group here again. This is pretty stupid of the restaurant manager, because they are going to lose out on a nice situation. Tour members always buy wine, soft drinks and coffee so the restaurant makes plenty of money. Group dinners are also nice for them because they always know ahead of time how many people and what the menu will be. Usually restaurants will bend over backwards to accommodate our tours, but this guy didn't seem to care. He certainly wasn't looking at the big picture because he is the one to lose in the end. The tour members never knew any of this took place and were fine with having to pay for drinks. I thought the food was fine. Not great, but perfectly acceptable, but this other restaurant William found is much better and actually cheaper. They will even include a glass of wine or soft drink for each person and coffee with dessert.
After dinner we walked to a bar for a drink and listened to a small blues band. It was strange to hear them sing in perfect English and then speak with a thick French accent, but they were really good. They have a hard apple cider in Normandy, which is pretty tasty. We ended up drinking several bottles and had a great time. We didn't get back to the hotel until after midnight, and it wasn't quite so fun to get up at 6:30 am this morning. We had to leave by 8:00 to have enough time to tour Monets garden in Giverny on the way back to Paris and then go to the Orsay museum. The garden was nice, but it was crowded with Japanese tour groups and I just did a quick walk through and then found a quiet little spot to have coffee and hang out until lunch. We got back to Paris about 4:00, dropped our bags off at the hotel and then hopped back on the bus and went to the Orsay Musuem. I like this museum a lot, but wasn't really feeling like fighting the tourist crowds. Since we had a local guide, I didn't have to go so instead walked back to the hotel and went to bed early. Today the group is at the Louvre museum, also with a local guide, so William and I took the group to the museum on the metro, then went out for coffee. I have a few errands to do today just to wrap things up, then I have the day free until the farewell dinner tonight. Its a beatiful day in Paris, so I will walk to the Luxembourg gardens and maybe the Pere Lachaise cemetary. Tomorrow morning right after breakfast I catch a train to Chamonix. I am ready for a little time to myself and to be on my own schedule. |
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